Evidence of dynamical dark energy found via the DESI DR2 Lyman$\alpha$ forest
Abstract
We present a comprehensive analysis of the cosmological implications of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Data Release 2 (DR2) Lyman- forest baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements, combined with DESI DR2 galaxy BAO, Type Ia supernova samples (Pantheon, DES-Dovekie, and Union3), and the cosmic microwave background CamSpec likelihood. We consider several dark-energy parameterizations, including Chevallier-Polarski-Linder, logarithmic, exponential, Jassal-Bagla-Padmanabhan, Barboza-Alcaniz, and generalized emergent dark energy, as well as the CDM model and non-flat extensions of CDM and CDM. Using the Metropolis-Hastings MCMC algorithm, we constrain cosmological parameters and compute Bayesian evidence with \texttt{MCEvidence}. We find that non-flat extensions remain consistent with spatial flatness, with . All parameterizations favor a dynamical dark-energy scenario with , , and , consistent with a Quintom-B behavior. A moderate preference for dynamical dark-energy models is found relative to CDM, reaching up to for Ly + CMB + galaxy BAO. When combined with SNe~Ia datasets, the deviations decrease to , corresponding to inconclusive preference. The Bayes factor () shows that model preference depends strongly on the dataset combination: CDM and oCDM exhibit moderate evidence for Ly + CMB + galaxy BAO, while most other models show weak or inconclusive evidence. With Pantheon or DES-Dovekie, oCDM shows strong evidence, whereas other models remain moderately favored.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2510.21976,
title = {Evidence of dynamical dark energy found via the DESI DR2 Lyman$\alpha$ forest},
author = {Salvatore Capozziello and Himanshu Chaudhary and G. Mustafa and S. K. J. Pacif},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.21976},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
11 pages, 3 figures, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics